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Comment by cycomanic | Hacker News Reader

I know this gets repeated a lot, but that doesn't make it more true. Show me the quote where he said "we lied about masks", and "we changed our message about masks" doesn't count.

The reality is that the knowledge about Covid changed significantly in march/April last year. In particular the understanding about unsymptomatic spread lead to a significant change of thinking. That makes sense, if the virus only spreads from sick people, the advice for everyone to wear a mask is not good health policy especially if there is a shortage. You want to prioritise people who get in contact with sick people and prevent sick people to go out. However, if unsymptomatic people spread the virus, you want everyone to wear masks, because you can't prevent spreaders to go out. But the masks are different, you want cloth masks more than n95, because it is about protecting others.

The below article is one which elaborates on the whole discussion

https://eu.statesman.com/story/news/politics/2020/12/29/did-...

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2 weeks of asymptomatic spread has been known about since late January (edit: in 2020). [0]

And Fauci said at one point (2/14/2020):

“There is no reason for anyone right now in the United States, with regard to coronavirus, to wear a mask” [1]

And at another point (6/15/2020):

"[...] we were concerned the public health community, and many people were saying this, were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment, including the N-95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short supply." [1]

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYyH4N8VXvA

[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/dr-fauci-made-the-coronavi...

The director of the CDC during most of the pandemic was Robert Redfield. Dr. Fauci is director of the NIH, so his statements are not relevant to the credibility of the CDC.

In defense of Dr. Fauci's statement, saying "there is no reason right now to wear a mask" is quite different from "masks are ineffective", as it keeps getting paraphrased. The latter is obviously absurd, as there were numerous studies on the effectiveness of masks against various viruses prior to 2020, just not against SARS-CoV-2 specifically, since as far as we know it didn't exist yet.

Fauci, and way too many Medical Doctors, seemed guenuinly confused over the efficacy of wearing a mask to prevent the spread of he Covid virus.

A lot medical professionals were claiming the average person wearing a mask will make things worse by putting it on ineffectively.

I heard one doctor say, "All it takes is one virus particle to become infected. I haven't heard any doctor talk about Viral Loads, even now.

My point is our medical professionals seemed as much in the "I just don't know?" catagory as the rest of us with this virus.

I'm still shocked researchers found a vaccine.

Zeynep Tufekci published an excellent article about this. Her thesis is that medical dogma insisted COVID (and other infections) spread through droplets and not aerosols. Social distancing is enough to prevent infection from droplets because they don't travel far. That, it turns out, is wrong, and COVID can spread through smaller respiratory particles that can float, making social distancing alone ineffective.

https://www.theinsight.org/p/the-few-sentences-that-explain-...

I've read the article, I do just want to clarify the statement "making social distancing alone ineffective."

It's still true that if you are covid suceptible, and if a covid-shedding person is walking around, you should try to be as far as possible from the covid. But, a brief close pass e.g. on the sidewalk, isn't as risky as sharing a 20'x10' office for hours, even if you stay >6ft the entire time.

There was information that it was aerosolized from the early days (March)

We were lied to because america did not stockpile enough masks for first responders

I don’t think it was that simple.

If the Wired article, which was downvoted to oblivion, is accurate then the WHO and the CDC (who parroted the WHO) bear a great deal of responsibility.

They shutdown scientists who were telling them that Covid was spreading as an aerosol, way back in early 2020.

The WHO now want MORE power, yet they’re not accepting accountability nor cleaning house.

The strange thing is that we have loads of research done over decades about all of this. It appears that the prominent doctors on the news don't know anything about it. Everything pumped out for publicity is about a sixth grade understanding of biology and epidemiology; but we know a lot more, it's just that Fauci doesn't talk about it and neither does the nightly news. If the role of journalists and the government was to inform, we would have well written articles on the loads of studies we have.

Journalists should give advanced information in digestible form about topics you didn't need to know about, but which are currently relevant. Instead, we get sixth grade hand waving in propaganda form.

Things like adaptive immune response, T-cells, immune escape, antibody dependent enhancement, viral loads, and lots of other things could be explained well but simply. It's a tragedy of modernity that we have so much information and so little understanding.

People can spend their entire lives studying one tiny aspect of our immune system; there are so many interacting, irreducibly complex systems that the average layman can be overwhelmed.

But there are simple things that can be explained visually. See, for instance, this video of Japanese scientists illuminating airborne droplets with green lasers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyZm6dx9Hss

Now, the contention here isn't that there are important concepts that should be explained to layman; the contention here is that there are important concepts that actual scientists need to explain to the decision-makers at the CDC.

If you’re in the ‘I just don’t know?’ category, how is it defensible to force others to adhere to your apparently unfounded strategies?

> In defense of Dr. Fauci's statement, saying "there is no reason right now to wear a mask" is quite different from "masks are ineffective"

If masks are effective, that would be a compelling reason for someone to wear a mask. Saying there is no reason to wear a mask, strongly implies that they aren't beneficial to the individual wearing them. Fauci must have known that this is how people would have interpreted his statements. He should have said "there are very compelling reasons not to wear a mask", which is very different from "there is no reason to wear a mask".

I understand that Fauci had good intentions behind his statement. But it's very hard to regain trust after making misleading statements like the above.

Fauci had said the reason they made a misspeak about masks is because they were afraid there would not be enough for first responders

It wasn't a "misspeak" it was a lie. He admitted it was a lie, and that he knew it was lie. If he wanted to give the Gov and CDC any credibility then he should have been honest about the need to reserve masks for health care professionals and urged people not to buy them and make home-made one instead. There is no valid excuse "I was lying for the greater good", that is bullshit.

https://medium.com/p/4ef05aa357c5

That sure helped the trust to CDC.

Trust in the CDC and Fauci only really declined among Republican voters (and was still high).

Sometimes, certain people being told not to trust you is a sign you're doing the right thing.

You do not speak for most Democrats.

I’m a Democrat; my circle is mostly Democrats. We also knew last year in February and March that we wanted masks.

So trust that Fauci meant well? Yes. He was in an extremely difficult position and in a position of policy advisor.

But trudt that masks were ineffective for the average person? Absolutely not.

It’s a contradiction that masks are effective for frontlines, yet somehow without reason or usefulness for everyone else.

So if it didn’t decline, perphaps it’s more accurate to say that there was only ever a certain type of trust to begin with.

And the past 12 months have borne out that suspicion.

I'm not a Democrat, which shouldn't really matter. I'm just relaying what actual surveys found, they were regularly asking questions about who was a trusted source of information on COVID and reporting on trends. Feel free to Google for them if you can't accept what I said as plausible.

I can’t accept your assertion because the polls say some very different.

For example: https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/health/2021/04/26/poll-...

Despite Fauci assuring that the J&J is safe, people are still very hesitant.

Which means the trust extended to Fauci only goes so far.

So while you want to paint a broad stroke of “Democrats trust” vs “Republicans don’t”, the reality is far more nuanced.

Inefficacy of masks is a central point in anti-maskers message, and sometimes they would cite you the whole passages from official WHO/CDC advisories. And the belated reversal is just an additional point to "scientists don't know shit" attitude.

No, yeah it did tremendous damage. While there'd certainly be anti maskers without anti-mask hysteria by authorities, the scale would not be the same. It's hard to quantify but likely many tens of thousands of excess deaths globally are on WHO lies.

"anti-mask hysteria by authorities"?

People were having difficulty providing evidence that Fauci admitted to telling a white lie elsewhere in these comments, yet it's widely believed by certain people that he did so.

There's a link to a factcheck in the comments that quotes what he actually said and it's not at all what many people in this thread seem to sincerely, but mistakenly, think he said.

So allow me to doubt that "anti-mask hysteria" was ever coming from the medical and scientific community unless I see exactly what you're talking about and evaluate it with my own eyes.

But I guess if we disagree on the facts, that helps explain why we draw different conclusions.

Do not confuse medical and scientific community with authorities. The ill advisory was coming from WHO and parroted by national authorities (including CDC). All while the efficacy of masks against airborne/pulmonary diseases was pretty much established. WHO is not a scientific body conducting independent research but a bureaucratic organization with heavy dose of politics.

However back in spring 2020 when the official position amounted to "a mask is a facehugger", arguing for using masks (including by medical professionals) was effectively impossible.

> in spring 2020 when the official position amounted to "a mask is a facehugger"

Well I guess it would be fruitless to ask for a source on this.

“There’s no evidence that wearing masks on healthy people will protect them,” Perencevich said, the publication reported. “They wear them incorrectly, and they can increase the risk of infection because they’re touching their face more often.”

https://www.sacbee.com/news/nation-world/national/article240...

"Masks may actually increase your coronavirus risk if worn improperly, surgeon general warns"

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/02/health/surgeon-general-co...

It was literally everywhere until correction in april 2020.

I think we watched different versions of the Alien(s) franchise. Did they retcon that in the prequels?

Don't let that facehugger insert a parasite embryo down your throat! Why not? Well overall it would be more beneficial to society if frontline medical staff were wearing that facehugger while treating patients with confirmed or suspected cases of the virus. Oh okay, that seems sensible.

You're just being intentionally obtuse. This attitude is exactly why it's pointless to list sources to pretend-inquisitive strangers on the Internet.

I honestly don't understand which bit of this quote, from your own source you don't understand:

“Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS!” he wrote. “They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!”

Is he saying that N95 masks don't work at all? That they only magically work for healthcare professionals?

Or is he very, very, clearly, even within the limited confines of a tweet, explaining that N95 masks are better allocated to frontline medical staff than being randomly worn by low risk people in low risk locations doing low risk tasks? That using those resources more effectively will save more lives and that people in those lowee risk situations can easily get protection by keeping a safe distance and following other sensible precautions that they list.

I can see how someone could intentionally misrepresent what he says, but I don't see an honest way to make that mistake.

I don't think I ever challenged the plausible intent of the lie (to avoid shortages). That does not stop a lie being a lie, with long term, serious harm.

The masks ARE effective in prevention COVID (both ways), and there is no demonstrated risk in wearing masks wrong. They lied on both accounts providing fuel to anti-masker movement. And yes the logical inconsistency of insisting masks are ineffective yet are necessary to frontline workers were pointed out year ago - you're not breaking any fresh ground here.

Nice way of taking both quotes out of context. The link I provided has the full quote. He was essentially saying what I said above: it is unclear if it makes public health sense for everyone to wear a mask, in particular we have a shortage of masks so we should prioritise health workers, there is nothing wrong with wearing a mask though.

Back in January 2020 for every medical authority saying that the virus is airborne there was at least one saying: We expect this to be similar to a harsh flu season at worst, at best the virus will burn out locally.

It takes time for knowledge to get formulated, broadly accepted, and turn into actual policy. It has to be like that. Most of the time, being prepared but doing nothing is the best thing to.

SARS, H1N1, Ebola + probably many others all burned out before they reached the west.

Have you ever heard of Aumann's Agreement Theorem? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aumann%27s_agreement_theorem

If scientists are looking at the same data and the same set of facts, then they cannot disagree.

Back when Hong Kong health authorities were warning about 14 days of asymptomatic spread, Chinese authorities had already placed multiple cities under martial law and set up concentration camps for infected people. It's absurd that the West was still in a "wait-and-see" mindset.

Was it a disinformation campaign from China funneled through Hong Kong or was it actually a breakout. We didnt know if the martial law was out of caution, China only reported 80k infections.

Lots of assumptions went wrong on this one

> “There is no reason for anyone right now in the United States, with regard to coronavirus, to wear a mask”

Isn’t this defensible if it was indeed true that there was a temporary shortage of masks for health care workers?

I think no. It erodes trust in medical institutions, and now we reap what was sown.

The same thing was done in other countries, including mine (Finland). Result: covid deniers are still using the year-old statements from national health agency to downplay the significance of masks.

"Masks are useless; the officials themselves say so", they quote.

Big mistake not to be honest, even if it leads to criticism against the government for inadequate preparation.

>even if it leads to criticism against the government for inadequate preparation.

There's your issue. Saying masks are in short supply begs the question of why. Whether it's reasonable or not, no politician wants to defend their unpreparedness.

If that was their reason, then why did the change the recommendation while still in the middle of the shortage? Here's an article from months after the CDC started recommending masks, showing that widespread PPE shortages among healthcare workers were still common[1].

There seems to be a lot of post hoc rationalization for what appears to simply be a mistake. This is why accountability is so difficult. People decide ahead of time that certain organizations or individuals are right. If it looks like they made a mistake, then there must be some good reason that justifies their actions that we just don't see.

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/22/coronavirus-why-a-ppe-shorta...

Wasn’t the PPE shortage and the initial recommendation for the public to not wear masks both mostly about N95 masks? From what I remember, by the time CDC was recommending masks for the public it was all about the simple cloth masks, which I don’t think I ever saw in stores before the pandemic and presumably don’t compete much with N95 masks for medical professionals.

No, because ultimately the lie will be exposed and then your credibility is (rightly!) done for.

> the lie will be exposed and then your credibility is (rightly!) done for.

The wording here is good because we _should_ be skeptical towards any organization that is supposed to protect our citizenry, but unflinchingly lied to the entire population/world. Government has powers so that that it can control society. Why did the CDC need to lie and mislead people instead of finding a way to restrict the flow and supply of masks? The sad thing is that it would even be more forgivable if they were just completely incompetent and made a wildly incorrect guess. But they knowingly and deliberately lied in possibly the worst scenario to lie during.

What I’m saying is that this particular claim was not a lie, if it was true that the general public wearing masks would lead to a worse public health outcome due to a shortage of masks for medical workers.

Yes.

Look it's always been known since the very early days of Wuhan crisis that masks will significantly reduce spread and risk (from past smaller pandemics & the nature of transmission of this virus). The various health organizations simply decided to prioritize supply for the medical community till production could ramp up by making statements that dissuade people from panic buying (as happened with say Toilet paper and flour later). While it's understandable, it doesn't make the early statements not "lies" and erosion in trust is a consequence.

> Look it's always been known since the very early days of Wuhan crisis that masks will significantly reduce spread and risk (from past smaller pandemics & the nature of transmission of this virus)

We have a lot of research into mask use, both to protect the wearer and to protect people around the wearer.

Can you point to any that you think CDC should have been using to support mask wearing in the general public?

You can argue about the level of evidence required (organisations like CDC strongly prefer well run meta analyses or a bunch of RCTs), but to say "it's always been known" simply isn't true.

I'd argue it has always been known that masks would protect both patients and wearers even from first principles and also how past pandemics with a less infectious virus were handled in Asia and from how common cold and flu dropped as a side effect.

The virus spreads via droplets exhaled or emitted from nose and mouth. What happens when something obstructs that flow - the % of droplets going in & out & velocity decreases and likelihood of transmission reduces. Why do you think surgeons wear masks - it's both to protect the patient and the surgeon from droplet borne infections.

What was unknown was whether it was economical to wear masks widely and whether there were supplies, not that it would work.

> Show me the quote where he said "we lied about masks"

The Street: "So, why weren't we told to wear masks in the beginning?"

Fauci: "Well, the reason for that is that we were concerned the public health community, and many people were saying this, were concerned that it was at a time when personal protective equipment, including the N95 masks and the surgical masks, were in very short supply. And we wanted to make sure that the people namely, the health care workers, who were brave enough to put themselves in a harm way, to take care of people who you know were infected with the coronavirus and the danger of them getting infected."

https://www.thestreet.com/video/dr-fauci-masks-changing-dire...

If they didn't suspect that an "atypical pneumonia" as it was called since the beginning had an aereosol component a case can be made that they were unfit for their job

If mask initial recommendation actually was a white lie a case can be made that they are unfit for communicating their results to the masses as they think their peers to be petulant children unfit for handling truths, and they should be stripped of that function

The other cases just convert into variations of them politicising a pandemic to unknown ends

As for the WHO, these organisations shouldn't have an easy way out of their responsibilities

Im not saying what they did was right, but look at toilet paper. Obviously the masses cannot handle news that something is in short supply. The CDC knew that if they said, "masks work, there's not enough masks, don't buy them cause doctors need them" that 95% of America would hear only the first two clauses and go out to buy as many masks as possible. All the masks would disappear, there would be a panic and hysteria more than there already was, and doctors would end up worse off than before.

Look at the gas crisis in the south. It's obvious that enough of America truly _are_ "petulant children" as you say that they cannot be trusted with such information. Given an opportunity, the American people will choose to make the national situation worse, to improve their personal one.

I think the main disconnect here is that the CDC communicated like it's job was to say what was needed for the best possible outcome (and still made mistakes and miscalculations) while (some of) the people believe the CDCs job is to communicate the whole truth 100% of the time. We can see from looking back at literally any war or the 1918 flu pandemic that the populace is routinely lied to for the 'benefit' of the country. What is happening now is that we can instantly fact check and communicate to millions of people our opinions on what was said. I am not saying they were right to do it, but attempting to provide the framework in which is becomes believable that _they_ believed it was right to do it.

This advanced the short-term goal of keeping masks available to doctors at the expense of the long-term goal of maintaining their own credibility.

People tell me that I should trust those those who lie to me because at least their goals are honorable. I disagree. While it might be possible to lie to someone you trying to help or even someone you dearly love, it's pretty much by definition not something you do to someone you respect. I generally am wary of help from people who don't respect me.

Perhaps it would be helpful to have separate news channels for petulant children who need to be lied to so that they don't destroy civilization. Everyone else could watch the real news. Of course, nobody wants to be told they're a petulant child.

I’d say that what they did was right. The noble lie is by definition noble. The news media acting as (not always unwitting) accomplices is the real problem.

The “not aerosol“ hypothesis was based on the assumption that the spread rate would have been much higher than observed with an aerosol capable virus. Turns out this one just happened to be quite bad at spreading amongst humans, despite being capable of residing in the air for quite a while. It's rather unsurprising then that we now see many mutations that fix some low hanging fruit "bugs", bringing the spread closer to what people would have expected. Arguably hope may have been a factor in weighing that hypothesis, but that's truly nothing anyone should be blamed for.

pneumonia and influenza whose main transmission vector is contact:

Droplet is the "popular" middle ground. Contact is completely overshadowed by both types of air travel unless air travel is either completely out of the picture (non-respiratory viruses like various herpes) or if the virus particles excel at durability outside the body (e.g. the rhinovirus family, whereas being bad at this is an outcome of the defining property of corona viruses, they are short-"lived" almost by definition).

And droplet basically translates to: "yes, masks would help, but simply keeping a few feet of distance will be just as good". Unfortunately, distance does to aerosol transmission what soda cans do to a wildfire.

Have you read what I wrote? Because you sure are not responding to it.

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